It’s already well over a month since I reported the publication of the Government’s national policy statements for energy (all six of them) and ports.
If it has all seemed quiet on the blog front, that’s because we’ve been wading through more than 1,700 pages of statements and background documents, trying to make sense of it all. The pace quickened when it became clear that the Parliamentary committees which are scrutinising the statements need our evidence very early in the new year. In fact, if you want to write in with comments you need to do so by 15 January if you want the committees to consider your points. After that, your comments will still get seen by the Government, but won’t get reflected in the committees’ reports.
What do we think of what we’ve seen so far? Unfortunately, the statements are deeply disappointing.
When the idea of national policy statements was first proposed several years ago, the RSPB and many others broadly welcomed them. Good strategic planning is one of the best ways of protecting special places from damaging development; it’s much better to steer the right development to the right location in the first place than having to fight running battles all over the country on poorly-conceived schemes. In all the debates on the Planning Bill (now the Planning Act 2008), the national policy statements was one part of the Bill that got a general thumbs up.
The bad news is that the national policy statements are not so much a strategic plan as a developer’s charter. Apart from nuclear power stations, they are very vague about where development might actually go, and there is little sign of joined-up thinking between statements. We haven’t even seen yet the statement on strategic road and rail networks, which will be important to make sense of the ports national policy statement.
All the statements have been purportedly assessed for their environmental impact (through a process known as Strategic Environmental Assessment), but the quality of the assessments is very poor. More on that next month when we will publish a report by experts on the assessments. We’re also concerned about how the Infrastructure Planning Commission will be able to assess the impacts on Natura 2000 sites.
There’s plenty more we could, and will say. We’re up before the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee on 13 January, so expect another post around then. Meanwhile, have a happy Christmas!